Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology and Computing(CASTAC)

CASTAC Mission
CASTAC's mission is to facilitate communication within the AAA among anthropologists working in areas related to science, technology and medicine, and to promote the visibility of anthropological research on technoscience. CASTAC offers a forum in which to organize sessions for meetings,
exchange ideas and network with anthropologists who have similar research interests. To support these activities, CASTAC

Subscribers post to the list by sending email to: castac@lists.castac.org

Diana Forsythe PrizeThe Diana Forsythe Prize was created in 1998 to celebrate the best book or series of published articles in the spirit of Diana Forsythe's feminist
anthropological research on work, science, or technology, including biomedicine.
The prize is awarded annually at the AAA meeting by a committee consisting of one representative from the Society for the Anthropology of Work (SAW) and two from CASTAC. It is supported by the General Anthropology Division (GAD) and Bern Shen.

To be eligible, books (or article series) must have been published in the last five years (copyright of 2010 or later)
Publishers, please send a copy of nominated titles to each of the selection committee members listed below. Publishers should submit three copies of the nominated title, one to each committee member listed below:

Current submission deadline is July 31, 2014 (early nominations appreciated).

Nominations should be sent via email to Selection Committee Chair, João Biehl at jbiehl@princeton.edu

Publishers, please submit three copies of the nominated title, one to each committee member listed below.

CASTAC History
CASTAC was founded nearly 20 years ago by anthropologists working on the newly emergent topic of computing. The Committee for the Anthropology of Computing, as it was first known, soon developed into CASTAC as anthropologists working at the intersection of anthropology and the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) joined together to grapple with new theoretical and methodological questions. For example, at a time when ethnography was being critically reexamined in anthropology and uncritically adopted in STS they asked: How should anthropologists study "technoscience" in contexts
unfamiliar to anthropology like laboratories, hospitals, universities, corporations and the virtual worlds of computing? What is the boundary between humans and machines?

In the 1990s, CASTAC constituted the
primary institutional setting within the AAA
for anthropologists working on technoscience
and it was during this period that the anthropology
of technoscience came of age. Michael
Fischer and then AAA President Annette Weiner
lauded the anthropology of technoscience as a
major new area of innovative research. Gary
Downey, Joseph Dumit and Sarah Williams
organized a prominent invited double session
at the 1993 AAA Annual Meeting in San
Francisco featuring a who's who of anthropologists
of technoscience. CASTAC also organized
a series of summer conferences and produced
directories that facilitated the expansion of the
anthropology of technoscience.
As the "science wars" in anthropology flourished
in the mid to late 1990s, so did the
anthropology of technoscience and STS. With
success came the expansion of institutional
venues for anthropologists of technoscience.
CASTAC was no longer the only place within
the AAA for them to affiliate. Thus, CASTAC
has transformed its mission.